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"Most women now work and their new economic independence contributes to levels of family break-up which are higher in the UK than in any other Western European country."
Because trapping women through economic dependence is good for children. And fathers have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
Because trapping women through economic dependence is good for children. And fathers have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
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-- "Most women now work"
Most women have always worked. Women make up the vast majority of the economic agents on the planet, as a direct result of their higher likelihood of caring for children and other dependants, and therefore of necessity.
Going out to work is not a middle class luxury, nor a sign of individualism run riot.
-- "their new economic independence"
What sort of data is this statement based on, and what is the benchmark for "independence" being used here? That women earn less than men is a fact. That they are more likely to end up caring for children after divorce or separation is a fact. That their jobs are more highly concentrated in the serivces part of the economy more vulnerable to the current financial crisis is a fact. These facts do not add up to the above statement, unless by "new" independence the writers of the report are referring to the changes in the law that allowed women to own property in their own name - and that happened quite a while ago.
-- "contributes to levels of family break up"
Again, what data is this based on? Even if the report managed to demonstrate that higher levels of affluence directly and causally contribute to higher levels of parents separating, which is unlikely, as we've established in the previous point that level of affluence is entirely theoretical. This is a double fallacy in that it's conjecture based on incorrect data.
-- "higher in the UK than in any other Western European country"
So what? I bet it's higher than in Soudi Arabia too, but Soudi Arabia is not our cultural benchmark. The UK shares more culturally and economically with the US than with Europe, and levels of divorce here are in fact lower. Saying which, still, so what? There seems to be an assumption buried there that "family break up" is some sort of social ill in it own right, but the implication is left vague - a sure sign of underlying ideology rather than data.
In short, this is bullshit. Not that you didn't know that already.
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I'm delighted to be loved, or even wuvved! =)
(Confession: I actually don't like Ben Goldacre terribly much. He's a bit of an arse if you ask me. But he _does_ have a thinkin' head on him...)
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Historically, this has been a very scary thing for those in power. In the United States, a hundred years ago, mill work and office work opened up to women (at vastly reduced wages with respect to men, but still, giving women a chance to make money on a larger scale than before). Then women got the vote, and became active forces in public and professional life.
Women having the ability to support themselves is a terribly scary thing to those whose worldview and lifestyle requires a trapped and oppressed workforce.
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Everyone knows what ungrateful, selfish bitches those mothers are. They just want their kids and partners to suffer so they can gallivant off to their high flying City jobs while wearing inappropriate clothing and then complaining about being sexually harrassed at work when all they've really done is be promoted over their hard working colleagues because of positive discrimination and political correctnes gone mad, and then they have the gall to fleece their husbands for money while sponging off the state and living the high life on sink estates.
's a fact.
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The following quote had my blood boiling. "Children with separate, single or step parents are 50% more likely to fail at school, have low esteem, be unpopular with other children and have behavioural difficulties, anxiety or depression," it argues.
Having been a single mother and a working mother I've obviously raised two uneducated, insecure loaners who will not succeed in life.... anyone who knows Sue or Trish knows how true this statement is.
Poppycock! and Tosh! I say
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When put like that it is practically an imperative that we ban panels of out-of-touch bigots right away.
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If 2% of children raised by two cohabiting parents suffer one or more of these things, and 3% of children raised by separated/single/step parents do ... that's a 50% increase in likelihood by being raised by 1 parent rather than 2.
But that still means the vast majority of ALL kids are doing really well.
If they were talking 20% and 30% that's more worrying, but still means 70% of single-parented kids are just fine thank you very much.
Percentage difference is useless without absolute figures to put the difference in context.
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Also, how *dare* they lump in step parents with absent parents? Children with step parents are raised by two parent, you bastards!
And and and, did you notice how insiduously they deploy the "50%" figure to make it seem to the casual peruser that half of all kids from non-standrad families have these sorts of problems??
*fume*
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(Anonymous) 2009-02-02 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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but apparently we are very good at raising chimps...
(Anonymous) 2009-02-02 08:18 pm (UTC)(link)"Chimps ahead of children with human mothering
Infant chimpanzee orphans given special human "mothering" are more advanced than the average child at nine months of age, according to a study by Professor Kim Bard of the University of Portsmouth. She looked at 46 chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s and found that youngsters given extra emotionally based care were more cognitively advanced than human infants. The study was a "stark warning" that just looking after physical needs was likely to result in a child who was maladjusted, she said."
Re: but apparently we are very good at raising chimps...
What? So what sort of "special human mothering" did the "less-developed" human children get? Were they raised in a box?
The lesson is obviously that, as humans, we are wasting our parenting skills on humans, when we can get much better results from parenting apes.
Re: but apparently we are very good at raising chimps...
There might well have been a "stark warning" in the full text of what Professor Kim Bard said, but not in what's got reported. Where's the data? (oh dear I am channelling Ben Goldacre again)
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